New & Improved

The Met Dedicates Costume Center to Anna Wintour

After almost two decades of charitable work for the museum, the fashion icon will be honored when the newly renovated space opens as the Anna Wintour Costume Center in May.

The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is getting a makeover. And, it includes iconic tastemaker Anna Wintour.

On Wednesday, the museum announced that, after a complete renovation, the Institute’s designated space inside the hallowed museum will be known as the Anna Wintour Costume Center.

“Anna Wintour’s extraordinary advocacy and fundraising have made this state-of-the-art space a reality,” Daniel Brodsky, the Museum’s Chairman, said.

The artistic director of Condé Nast and Editor-in-Chief of Vogue has helped raise $135 million for The Costume Institute since January 1999 as a Trustee of the Met. In doing so, Wintour has helped make exhibitions such as the wildly popular Alexander McQueen retrospective possible, as well as enable the two-year renovation of the space.

The Anna Wintour Costume Center will include a 4,200-square-foot main show room as well as a state-of-the-art costume conservation lab, and one of the world’s foremost fashion reference libraries.

The updated exhibition space reopens on May 8 with an inaugural exhibition of America’s first couturier, Charles James: Beyond Fashion. The retrospective will feature 100 of James’ most notable designs.